"As a Linux user, there are times when you have to play nicely with users of Windows or Mac OS - such as when they send you Microsoft Word files. When you receive a Word file, you can either follow Richard Stallman's advice and refuse it, or bite the bullet and work with it. Modern Linux word processors - such as OpenOffice.org Writer, AbiWord, KWord, and TextMaker - can deal with most Word files. But if you don't want to fire up a word processor in order to read or print the document, you can turn to the command line. A handful of small but powerful Linux command line utilities make viewing, printing, and even converting Word files to another format, a breeze."

Stallman has a really good sense of reality. He advises you to refuse Word documents. You can be sure he himself does. He also is in a position he is able to do so (he doesn't work for someone using word files or so). So his advice is reasonable from his position.

So everytime someone gives you an advice, you have to neogiate yourself wether this advice fits you or not. If not, this doesn't mean the advice is unrealistic in general!

The only stupidity here is the missing distinction between advice and command, and that's definitely not on Stallman's side.